HPE Primera vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0, while Lenovo is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.7. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 4.2% mindshare in AFS, compared to Lenovo’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of Lenovo users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and HPE Primera compete in enterprise data storage solutions. HPE Primera appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and long-term value.

Features: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is valued for data management capabilities, reliability, and straightforward deployment. HPE Primera is noted for performance, scalability, and superior features for high performance and future scalability.

Room for Improvement: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series could improve integration capabilities, ease of use, and mixed customer service reviews. HPE Primera could simplify its initial setup, reduce complexity, and shorten deployment times.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series offers straightforward deployment but has mixed customer service reviews. HPE Primera takes longer to deploy but has dedicated support and better overall customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series has a lower setup cost and faster ROI. HPE Primera is more expensive upfront but delivers better long-term ROI and value with its advanced features and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Primera is 4.2%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is 2.2%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Taufeeq Rauf

Head of IT at NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FACILITATION TECHNOLOGIES (PVT.) LTD.

Offers a simple user interface and is useful for data replication

I use HPE Primera for mission-critical applications. My company uses the product as a storage solution for our machines. The availability of HPE Primera in our company is critical for us, considering that we operate in an HA environment where we can't have downtime since we need to deal with cheque clearance for banks. The product's interface is simple to use. I am satisfied with the user experience provided by the product. The ease of use of the product's interface has directly had an impact on our company's operations, along with the improvement in the availability and performance of machines. Compared to HPE Primera, I work with a much more reliable storage solution like Dell PowerStore. Compared to HPE Primera, Dell PowerStore's features related to deduplication are very good, and it also offers a physical storage capacity of eight TB, which can be expanded up to forty TB. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it only after taking into consideration their usage and requirements. From the price and performance point of view, Dell PowerStore is a better choice. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

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Mark Richmond

Chief Technology Officer at Next Level Communications

Reliable and fast servers with good support

We use on-premise servers with Lenovo ThinkSystem. We set up Hyper-V and load multiple types of servers including a domain controller, a SQL Server, and application servers The solution provides fast servers that are reasonably priced. We set up RAID ten to ensure drive redundancy, leading to…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is reliability."

"The latency is good."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"The solution is very straightforward to set up."

"Pure Storage has signature security technology, which cannot be deleted, even if you are an administrator."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"What I really like about this program, is that it is easy to use and easy to configurate."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The product has better replication features than the previous products."

"HPE Primera is used for shared storage."

"It is stable and reliable."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide the IOPS ratio which is required by a lot of our customers."

"Primera's main advantage is its support for NVM drives and normal flash drives. It has some sort of AI analysis that automatically tells us how to optimize the performance."

"HPE Primera provides me with system reliability and 100% data reliability. The storage is good and is consistently reliable and scalable, allowing me to use it whenever needed. The overall performance is great. The product is stable. The customer service and support is excellent. It's a commendable solution, especially suitable for online transactions. It is reliable in meeting data requirements."

"HPE provides good support through their customer service."

"HPE Primera is scalable."

More HPE Primera pros

"The value we derive from using it is greater than other alternatives like HPE and Dell."

"Scalable and stable storage array."

"The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload."

"The solution offers very good reliable systems and storage for our clients."

"The price of this solution is good."

"Ability to cluster two storages together with HA availability."

"It has been a perfect fit for the workload that our customer is doing."

"One of the most valuable features of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is the snapshot feature."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series pros

Cons

"Managing data isn't difficult for me. The performance is usually perfect, but we sometimes have capacity problems."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics should not incur extra charges."

"Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial."

"There are some challenges with data encryption and reduction."

"The UI for this solution needs to be improved."

"The tool's pricing is higher than competitors."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the dashboard and management could be simplified."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"There really isn't any aspect of the solution that needs improvement for the customer other than its price."

"HPE Primera's deduplication area is not as good as the one offered by Dell PowerStore, making it an area where improvements are required."

"One of the drawbacks of the model we purchased is that it is not running NVMe drives. Even though they say that it is NVMe-ready, it is still on the SSD drives. The model that we purchased has only eight hard drives, and only the ones on the top could work on NVMe. The rest of them are still on the SSD. Its competitors, such as EMC and Pure Storage, are moving or have already moved to NVMe. HPE should improve this solution for NVMe. HPE should also improve IOs in this solution. IOs in HPE are weaker than Hitachi and Pure Storage."

"This solution would be expensive for small business and it could be priced more competitively for that market."

"The solution could improve by having seamless migration from other storage systems. The process should be made easier."

"The cost of HPE Primera could be lower."

"We cannot use this storage for critical applications and data."

"The interface needs to be more user-friendly in that sense that installation and management are still a bit on the high end."

More HPE Primera cons

"The tool's pricing is high."

"This is an expensive solution."

"The solution needs a simpler licensing theme around the DM series. The problem is if you only need one of the features, you still have to buy the whole thing. The licensing needs to be more granular or flexible so you have the option to only license FlexCone or Inline Compression features."

"Many people do not realize that Lenovo has a storage solution, so better marketing from the vendor is needed."

"There might be improvements needed in drive throughput as disk speed has been a limitation on Windows servers."

"Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is not stable. If I have sold fifty boxes, about fifty percent of them experienced failure."

"Lenovo could have a wider variety of storage solutions in the NAS space."

"The Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series was very hard to configure. Installation of the product was very hard. These are its areas for improvement."

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"The product is expensive."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The price to capacity ratio is good."

"The solution’s pricing is affordable and worth the money."

"It’s a reasonable choice. When compared to other options, we've found it to be accessible and within our means."

"I believe HPE Primera and Pure Storage are similar in price."

"From what I see, this is competitively-priced and HPE are doing their best to stay competitive."

"The tool is expensive. I can say that HPE Primera is one of the costliest tools in the market."

"The price of HPE Primera could improve, it is expensive."

"HPE Primera is a little bit higher than Dell PowerStore...HPE Primera costs around 80,000 USD."

More HPE Primera pricing and cost advice

"Lenovo offers two software tiers for the DM Series: basic and premium. If you need more features like the MetroCluster, you must buy the premium version. You can stick to the basic software if you don't need MetroCluster or features like asynchronous replication. That makes DM Series a little cheaper."

"The solution's pricing is similar to Dell and HPE."

"The price of the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is good."

"The solution is highly-priced."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Educational Organization

44%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

20%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

See all answers

Which would you choose - HPE Nimble Storage or HPE Primera?

HPE Nimble is a versatile synced WAN San solution. It is easy to use and doesn’t require much training for admins. Th...

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What's the difference between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE Primera?

HPE Primera has many great features but one of the best is that it is very easy to deploy. From an overall perspectiv...

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What do you like most about HPE Primera?

For over a year, I have not seen any downtime in the product.

See all answers

What do you like most about Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

The product’s quality of service guarantees the performance of each workload.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

There are extra expenses beyond the standard licensing fee for features such as replication and deduplication, which ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series?

The deployment process of Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series is very complicated compared to previous GUI systems. Many cus...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 32% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 14% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

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HPE Alletra Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 36% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs HPE Primera

Compared 18% of the time

HPE Nimble Storage vs HPE Primera

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs HPE Primera

Compared 8% of the time

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NetApp AFF vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 40% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Lenovo ThinkSystem DE Series vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 12% of the time

Dell PowerStore vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 10% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Compared 1% of the time

More Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

March 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera

March 2025

Download HPE Primera product report

Buyer's Guide

All-Flash Storage

March 2025

Download Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Primera

ThinkSystem DM Series

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

HPE introduces HPE Primera, a new storage platform designed to deliver superior simplicity, availability, and performance for mission-critical applications
HPE Primera advances the HPE Intelligent Data Platform, a portfolio of products and solutions designed to help customers transition from delivering storage to unlocking business value with intelligent data

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

To meet enterprise storage requirements, ThinkSystem All-Flash DM Series systems provide high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management. DM Series runs on ONTAP data management software, which gives customers unified storage across block-and-file workloads. It accelerates your business while improving the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of your IT operations.

Lenovo

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

March 2025

Free Report: HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Primera vs. Lenovo ThinkSystem DM Series and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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